Artist Photos Missing in iTunes 12.5.1

Hopefully it is a bug that will be fixed soon

super frustrating, Ive contacted apple multiple times about this.

Im sure they have zero intention of rectifying.

8 pages of angry user posts and still deafening silence from Apple. If the company I work for handled customer support this way they'd be in serious trouble.

ive had issues like this many times over years and posted umpteen emails to Apple, never ever have responded? Crazy thing is ive apple products coming out of my ears, I love them but as a company, customer service is Dire. there had to be a reasonable explanation? They are too busy adding stupid emojis and thinking we'll all love them? I spend a lot of time on my library and want it right.

The first thing that comes to mind right after looking at the new iTunes interface is, what waste of screen space. I also hated the rounded icons in Artists view. The last version with square shape looked better than these rounded ones. So unprofessionally designed GUI.

They should rather give us an option to have a larger album art when you click the thumbnail near progress bar. It is still not big enough if all we want to see is an album art on full screen with some basic controls.

Also to have lyrics display option in the right click menu would be great, rather than going through get info options.

F*ck this ****, I've spent ages getting my library of more than 60Go sorted out perfectly with hand-picked album covers, and now all I see is ****** microphone icons! I can't even browse it!

GET US BACK THE ARTIST COVER IMAGES INSTEAD OF THOSE ****** MICROPHONE ICONS!

I honestly think this was an oversight. They are trying to merge commonality with the iPhone and I think they only tested downloaded music and not ripped music. The developers probably don't rip music on their development machines. They need to be more thorough in their testing but I am sure they will fix this if we just take the time to submit Feedback. Use the feedback assistant if you are Beta Tester if not: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

More than half of the artists of my music library has this stupid microphone icon instead of a picture now.

I am a member of Apple Music, so it's not a purchase thing.

Why can't we just choose an album cover art of the artist like before??! Why is this so complicated?

And why a small circle now? We can hardly see the picture!

Man, so disappointing. 😟
I hope this is a bug.

Not ideal because this should not be an issue, but right-click (yes, I'm a Windows users) on a cover, click "Get Info" then hit ESC. The album cover will load.

Could be worse....

doesn't work... tried many times

this doesnt work for me either

This appears to affect the Remote App for iTunes on iOS if you by chance remove and reinstall the App. I am guessing the Artist Artwork is Cached and now it is gone.

made no difference

three linked devices all random so nothing to do with purchased as I've bought nothing

I managed to downgrade to iTunes 12.4.3 (Previous version) on Mac OS X 11.10.6, in a pretty manual way, now I got my old artists list back!

For you who want to try this solution, it should work in theory on any OS X version:

1 - Download iTunes 12.4.3 here: Download iTunes 12.4.3 for OS X

2 - When you mount the downloaded .dmg file, you'll have this:

When you double click the Install iTunes, you'll have a dialog warning message saying "A newer version of iTunes is installed", then that's it.

You have to delete the new iTunes, but you can't do so by deleting it's .app folder through Finder, you'll get a message saying "You can't delete this app because it is required by OS X". So we'll do it through command line.

3 - Open a terminal (cmd+space => type terminal => hit Enter), then carefully type this command:

sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app/

(You'll be prompted to enter your password, go ahead and hit Enter. This is a command line to delete a folder and its content, the sudo is essential because it enables you to run this command as root)

4 - Then install iTunes in the previously opened mounted volume, it should install correctly.

5 - If you try to open it, you'll have a dialog saying something like "The .itl library file was created using a newer version of iTunes", then you'll be stuck with "Update" or "Quit" options. Click "Quit" for now.

6 - Go back to the terminal, and carefully type this command:

sudo rm ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Librar*

(Note the asterisk at the end, it is very important. This will delete the iTunes configuration files created by the newer version)

7 - Now iTunes should be opened successfully, don't be surprised if there is no music or content showing up, you'll just have to import your existing library: cmd+O => Browse to your library location, by default it should be:
Music => iTunes => iTunes Media => Music

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If you want to try this solution, please do so carefully or have a computer knowledgeable friend of yours with you while doing so.